Faith, consistency, & hard work

Besides the vulgarity, SpokenReasons is a very talented comedian and poet.  He injects a breath of societal commentary into each of his entertaining videos.  Within this video, he encourages his viewers to succeed through faith, consistency, and hard work.

• Faith
• As I stated in the article How I Know God Exists, you have to have faith if you expect to do anything significant or extraordinary in life.  Without the belief and confidence in something greater than we can visibly see, where does the resilience necessary to overcome continuous obstacles and life challenges come from?  It has to come from a belief in a higher power regardless of particular religion or culture.  By having faith in something bigger than yourself, you are teaching your mind, body, and soul to keep going no matter what this universe throws at us.  Some of the most successful people in the world are advocates of faith.  
• As evil and cold as this world can be sometimes, it amazes me that people are so cocky and self-assured that they think and assume they are solely responsible for their success.  In order for this world to even exist, there were sacrifices.  For any accomplishment you gain in life, someone besides yourself had to sacrifice.  Whether it was a teacher giving you valuable information to learn a concept or skill or the federal government providing your with finances to attend college, someone made a sacrifice.  People do not make sacrifices without the existence of a God.  
• Consistency
• By never giving up, working hard, and staying steadfast towards your goals, you will accomplish your established goals and the doors of opportunity will open for you.  A big part of consistency is to embrace your fears.  Whether it's poverty, fear of failure, fear of lacking the right degree or skills, you have to run towards your weaknesses and fears with the confidence that God is with you always (faith) and that you can make it through anything (resilience). To never be complacent is essential to holistic success.  

• Hard Work
• A lot of people have faith and our consistent in their faith.  But what is void is action.  You must take action every single day to accomplish your short-term and long-term goals.  Wake up every morning with optimism and purpose as you prepare to fight for your goals.  That could mean you have to force yourself to set aside certain periods of time each day to work on your craft, read a book in your field, create a storyboard, do consumer research, create a marketing plan, network with strangers, design a website, create a song, etc.  You have to take the time to focus on execution.  For example, my goal is to write two e-books this year.  By writing this blog, reading consistently in the chosen topic areas (domestic violence and creative businesses/income), and writing actual book content, I am aggressively, diligently working hard and working smart to chop away at my big goals.  When I feel like giving up, I read or listen to something motivational or inspirational.  I stare at the hundreds of books in my office and imagine my book being on that shelf one day soon.  I interact with positive, successful people to keep me going and to keep me accountable.  Subsequently, short-term goals are objective, measurable, and realistic daily tasks that will lead to my big goal.  Thus, the goal of writing at least one page per day allows me to reach my goals because I am making consistent action.  

As much as I love reading, researching, and being engulfed in information, sometimes the best way to be successful is to quickly plan then act.  You can learn the rest along the way.  While you are planning for long periods of time, you are missing out on opportunities every single day.  If your purpose in life is to build a legacy or to help people, you need to have your product, business, service, talent, etc. out yesterday.  Act now, planning and faith are not enough alone.